Infiltration

Well, knowing what we had to do, both me and Alva started to brainstorm how we can enter the city, and when we came up with 3 ideas. First option was to storm through the gate and fight the bandits there, and then seek shelter in the city, second was sneaking inside, maybe through one of the walls, and the third one, the last one, was disguising ourselves as part of the bandits and trying to go in that way. While all options had benefits and cons to them, either the first or second options were the way to go.

“Hmm” - I thought intensely - “What do you think?”

“I really don’t know, honestly I think it’s better to not the large risk and just try to sneak in, though I think we’d need to wait for a bit to actually do that”

“Yeah, well let’s just roll with this then, if we’re lucky we might be able to start a train too, then all we have to do is inform the people in capital that the city has been overrun”

“Yeah…” - Alva sounded a bit disappointed saying this, I’m sure he really wanted to save the people himself

We camped in front of the gate with the bandits occasionally looking out through the gate to see if we were up to something. Regarding Alva’s training, his basics were steadily improving and were already at an impressive level, but there was still no indication of what ability he wanted to develop, but well I can’t say much. The camping was going rather uneventfully, until the old lady we asked for directions earlier approached us:

“Girl, gone”

“Huh?” - I said - “what do you mean gone?”

the woman didn’t even respond but just pointed her finger at the gate, and I was able to notice the girl from earlier trying to sneak into the city, what a stupid idea! I don’t think she realised how dangerous this was, one of the guards definitely saw her sneaking up, I don’t want to think what they will do with her if they catch her.

“Alva!” - I screamed desperately

“ I know!”

Both of us started to rusheed towards the entrance, as the main guard noticed us running, one of the guards behind him pulled out a sword that was around maybe arm’s length, and started his swing at the child. I was a bit faster than Alva so I knew I had to be one to save the kid. As quickly as possible I jumped and grabbed the girl, while the swinger was stopped by Alva with his knife.

“Safe” - I said jokingly, though the situation was pretty serious

I turned around and saw that the guy who tried to swing at the girl was already knocked on the ground by Alva. I took the girl and walked towards the city, since we already made a breakthrough attempt, Might as well commit to it. Though there were a lot of bandits walking around, with all of them focusing on us, I didn’t think the escape would be that hard since well, I am quite confident in my and my pupils skills. This didn’t last long.

“Oi oi!” - A loud voice echoed throughout the street

“Boss!” - said the main gatekeeper after which all the bandits started looking at the

“I told you to not let anyone in the city! Do you want me to kill you?”

“No! No please boss! It’s just a one time thing, we had things under control!” - spoke the gatekeeper with terror, looked like the ‘boss’ was quite respected here, and I assume for good reason.

And Then it happened, before I was even able to react, the ‘boss’ got past me and alva and went straight up to the gatekeeper, after which he held him with one hand holding his head.

“Please, I beg you Ple-” the pathetic begging was quickly followed by a crunch after which the keeper got dropped to the ground

“Come on!” - the ‘boss’ screamed - “Kwondan wouldn’t stand for this and Neither will I, Shameful!”

“Alva” - I said quietly, the situation was now way more serious than I initially thought - “Take the girl and run, I’ll hold him back and we’ll rendezvous around the city.”

“Huh? You want me to just leave you?” - He sounded very unsure, but after looking at him I think he understood this is not a person we can get away playing with “This is the last time this happens, next time you’ll be the one getting protected all right?”

“Haha! Aren’t you cocky! Here you go” - Although rather unethical I passed him the kid and prepared to engage the ‘boss’

“ Oi! You two, you’re next!”

Alva has started running towards the city, and this time I was prepared for the attack. As he was trying to dodge past me, I was quick enough to summon my glaive and intercepted his path.

“Ho ho, seems like you’re no amateur” - he gripped my weapon tightly as he said this, and prepared to swing at me. I let go of the weapon, and stopped projecting it, which made him lose his balance and miss the swing.

“All right, I see you’re the real deal, so I’ll do you a favour, hit me full power, all you’ve got.”
“Huh?” - There really was nothing in it for him, unleashing he had an ability that maybe reflected my blows with enhanced force

“Hey hey, no need to be scared, I don’t resort to dirty tricks, you have my word on this, my pride is on stake here”

While still a bit skeptical, I believed him, all those thugs looked at him like a god, and if I had to be honest, part of me wanted to believe him, to see if I can truly best someone so confident, if I can achieve something great that no one is expecting. I began to examine him, he had short black hair that was slicked to the back a little. and his whole body was covered by a large black goat, it really did look like he was hiding something. I decided to trust my instincts and go through with attacks, I needed to find a point that would wound him to the point of being unable to fight but not enough to kill him, since I doubt the rest of the bandits would cooperate with me. After thinking for a couple of seconds, I thought around the kidney was a good point.

I began my run up, I decided to thrust instead of slash, for not really a particular reason apart from maybe seeing how accurate I can be. I ran as fast as possible, with much as force as possible, but when I finally hit him, nothing happened

“Huh?” - I said in confusion

“Haha! Go on, More!” - he said enthusiastically as he was laughing.

I really did not know what happened, I decided to swing once more. and once more. and once more. No matter what I did the hits weren’t doing anything, All they did was bounce off. And then then finally, one last swing, the most desperate one aimed at his neck.

“Woah woah, aren’t you greedy?”

My glaive snapped in contact with his skin, there was literally nothing I could do to this man, my legs began to shake a little and I started to pull back

“Hey hey, don’t be so scared, Here I’ll show you the trick”

He pulled off his coat just to reveal a sleeveless T-shirt underneath, however that was not the impressive part, his body was shining incredibly brightly, almost blindingly.

“I think you can guess by now, my ability I mean”

I didn’t respond but I had a general idea of what It could be

“ ‘Crystallization’ it lets me cover my whole body with incredibly hard crystals, no matter what you do, you won’t harm me, useful isn’t it? Well, you had your go now it’s my turn”

His fully-coated hand swung at me, but I was able to step back. I honestly

expected something like this, but I don’t think it’s over yet, I had an ace up my sleeve

“You won’t be getting anywhere!” - He started running at me

I knew what to expect, so I dodged the attack quite easily and was able to launch a counterattack that was quite effective

Boom!

“Ah, what is this?” - Seemed like this one really did hurt the boss, which was honestly the biggest relief I had in a while

“This? A gun” - Now , listen to me, It’s not like I ever said the only thing I could summon was that glaive, I practiced with other weapons and have some decent competency with a couple

“A gun? Haha! Now that’s new”

The real battle begins now

“Those are cheap tricks you know?” - He said, although it really didn’t seem like he meant it.

My shots were quite effective at first, I was playing hit-and-run tactic rather well, though it didn’t last long, as he soon caught on to the trick. My next bullet was deflected

“All i have to do is make more crystals around that area, and the bullet becomes a joke”

He said it though, I knew I hurt him so there was that at least. It wasn’t long before all the fight boiled down to was the stamina, using my gun exhausted me more than using the glaive, since i had to provide Ishiki for both the base of the gun as well as the bullets, and the force propelling them, I knew i wouldn’t be able to win if it went like this. Before I even noticed the distance between us was way too close to be called comfortable, I decided to switch to my glaive instead and focus on defending and look for an opportunity to run instead.

I was able to dodge and defend a couple of first swings, but soon after I began to feel the effects of tiredness, and before I even noticed I got hit. The pain was way worse than I expected, not only was he still not as tired as I am, the crystals weren’t exactly the smoothest so they hurt even more, I was distracted by the pain enough that I didn’t even notice the sweeping kick he did, that knocked me to the floor. I saw his fist rise behind his back, and if he punched me right here and right now it would’ve been over.

However, when he was winding up, the gate, or rather the top part of the frame of the gate exploded.

“What the -?” Before he was able to finish the sentence, the blocks falling caused so much commotion and due to them breaking, the dust in the air was so intense, it was honestly like being in the clouds.

Before I even noticed, I had been dragged away from him, due to the rubble floating in the air. It was getting hard to breathe, and my tiredness was not helping.

Soon enough I was starting to pass out and before I knew it, all I was seeing was black.